Uncle Thomas glanced involuntarily down at his own thick, double-soled, calfskin understandings.
"Boots like them!" exclaimed the merry girl, laughing again.
"But come along, my good uncle," she added more seriously, drawing her arm within his, and attempting to move away. "We'll have all the neighbourhood staring at us. You can't be in earnest, I'm sure, about my wearing clumsy leather boots. Nancy, the Irish cook, has a pair; but I"——
"And pray, Lizzy," returned the old gentleman, as he yielded to the impulse given him by his niece, and moved down the street beside her—"are you so much heartier than Nancy, so much stouter and stronger, that you can bear exposure to damp and even wet pavements, in thin shoes, while she will not venture out unless with feet well protected by leather boots?"
"My shoes are not thin, uncle," persisted Lizzy. "They have thick soles."
"Not thin! Thick soles! Look at mine."
Lizzy laughed aloud, as she glanced down at her uncle's heavy boots, at the thought of having her delicate feet encased in leather.
"Look at mine!" repeated Uncle Thomas. "And am I so much more delicate than you are?"
But Miss Walton replied to all this serious remonstrance of her uncle (who was on a visit from a neighbouring town) with laughing evasion.
A week of very severe weather had filled the gutters and blocked the crossings with ice. To this had succeeded rain, but not of long enough continuance to free the streets from their icy encumbrance. A clear, warm day for the season followed; and it was on this day that Miss Walton and her uncle went out for the purpose of calling on a friend or two, and then visiting the Art-Union Gallery.